BOOK REVIEW HOLIDAY SPECIAL SECTION

“You were born on the road, like your father,” Mother begins the bilingual Spanish/English story CALLING THE DOVES/EL CANTO DE LAS PALOMAS, text by Juan Felipe Herrera, illustrations by Elly Simmons (Children’s Book Press: $14.95).

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With a twist on the guardian-of-the-bridge tale, Jack outwits a troll in HEY, PIPSQUEAK! by Kate and Jim McMullan (Michael di Capua Books / HarperCollins: $14.95).

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WHATLEY’S QUEST, written by Bruce Whatley and Rosie Smith, illustrated by Whatley (HarperCollins: $15.95), makes an alphabet book a treasure hunt. A grumpy giant wearing goggles. . . .

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A sultan who falls off his elephant is only a teensy link in the chain reaction when a boy throws his sister’s doll out of the window in WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND by Richard McGuire (Viking: $13.99)

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The original teddy bear is too valuable to be allowed out to play with other bears and he’s mighty lonely in his vault until a strange accident liberates him in THE MILLION-DOLLAR BEAR by William Kotzwinkle, illustrated by David Catrow (Alfred A. Knopf: $16).

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What, Papa wants to know, is Hetty doing up in that apple tree? E.B. Lewis’ art lets you breathe the country air when Hetty goes DOWN THE ROAD, text by Alice Schertle (Browndeer Press / Harcourt Brace: $16).

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When Emily gets lost in a blizzard, what her parents don’t know is that she’s perfectly all right: She ends up in the land of the ostriches, where her dancing career takes off, in EMILY AND THE OSTRICHES, written by Dan Bernstein, illustrated by Gary Aagaard (Rizzoli: $15)

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LEONARD: A Fable, by Wolf Erlbruch (Orchard Books: $14.95), is the delightfully eccentric tale of a great dog lover who yet fears dogs--until he sees the world from a canine perspective.

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“No one Yungsu knew was at the playground. He sat on the swing and thought of his friends in Korea. Yungsu missed them very much.” Yumi Heo’s beautifully colored pictures enliven a pretty straightforward immigrant’s tale in FATHER’S RUBBER SHOES (Orchard Books: $14.95).

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“Tsk,” said the doctor, peering into the boy’s mouth. “You caught a bug all right.” Poor bug! Two pill-policemen are dispatched into the boy’s innards to catch him in BUZ by Richard Egielski (HarperCollins: $15).

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Virginia Hamilton retells the strange Cinderella story of the beautiful mermaid and Mary Belle, whose stepsisters treat her “oh, like she didn’t belong to anybody” in HER STORIES: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales and True Tales, illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon (Scholastic: $19.95).

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Is our whole universe just a speck of dust in God’s eye? Istvan Banyai’s sequence of scenes in RE-ZOOM (Viking: $13.99) keep pulling back to show the bigger picture, but how big is big? The boat on this green sea turns out to be a child’s toy on a pond.

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MONKEY BUSINESS by J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh (Viking: $14.99) is the story of the enterprise set up by Space Monkey once he returned home from his dangerous mission in the rocket ship. Here you’ll find the wise advice: “When a bird steps on your house, find another.”

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THE JESTER HAS LOST HIS JINGLE by David Saltzman (The Jester Co.: $20) is the tale of a court fool exiled because he no longer makes the king laugh, and of how he rediscovers his sense of joy.

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In GOLLO AND THE LION (Hyperion: $14.95), Eric Oyono retells a folk tale from Cameroon. Even in its large format, the book barely contains the vibrant illustrations by Laurent Corvaisier.